| Time |
Event |
| 4:36a |
About LA fires: the historical facts
How building houses
in areas of frequent fire
within LA built up the
conditions for worse fires.
It could be that leaving some areas vacant would help protect the rest
of the city from fire. But not necessarily.
The end to fire suppression in certain areas would cause more frequent
fire in those areas. Those would not directly harm anyone if the
areas were uninhabited — but these fires have been spread by burning
embers which can travel a long way. It could be that the frequent
fires in those areas would spread each time to inhabited parts of the
city.
I can see the question, but I don't know enough to propose an answer.
Building all buildings so that they have nothing flammable on the
outside would make them safe. Eliminating all trees would help too.
Is anyone working on a fire-extinguishing robot? To have 10,000 of
those in the LA area would be expensive, but it might be worth the
cost.
|
| 4:36p |
|
| 4:36p |
Estimates on people killed by Israel's bombardment of Gaza
The Lancet estimates that Israel's bombardment of Gaza had killed
around 65,000 people as of last June.
They estimate that over 60% of the dead were noncombatants.
This figure does not try to include deaths causes by the siege, or
people buried under rubble. Palestinians have reported thousands of
specific people they believed to be buried in the rubble of specific
buildings.
</li> |
| 4:36p |
Impeached president of South Korea guarded
The impeached president of South Korea lives in a fortress guarded by
his personal guard corps, who won't allow cops in. The parliament
wonders how to arrest him.
I suggest passing a law to cut off the salaries of his guards.
Then they could allow only adequate but boring food in.
</li> |
| 4:36p |
New investigation on Tulsa race massacre
The Department of Justice has released a report on a new investigation
of the Tulsa race massacre.
This report presents concretely the cruelty and hatred that racism
inspires. It was not the only such racist mob attack in US history,
but it was perhaps the largest. There are right-wing extremists today
who would like to commit more.
Ironically, the article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry
by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I
will not link to articles that practice it. But I make exceptions for
some articles which report on worse cases of bigotry, and the massacre
surely is worse.
</li> |
| 4:36p |
|
| 4:36p |
|
| 4:36p |
|
| 4:36p |
"Winners" of annual Shkreli Awards
*The "winners" of the annual Shkreli Awards — named
after notorious "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli and given to the 10 "worst
examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare" — include a
Texas medical school that sold body parts of deceased people without
relatives' consent, an alleged multi billion-dollar catheter scam, an
oncologist who subjected patients to unnecessary cancer treatments,
and a "monster monopoly" insurer.*
</li> |
| 4:36p |
Japanese gangster charged with selling fissionable materials
A Japanese gangster is charged with trying to sell fissionable materials.
(Also drugs, but that is not what's noteworthy.)
It seems to me that the crucial question is where it came from.
What country that can make large quantities of fissionable material
is selling them or losing them?
</li> |
| 4:36p |
Banks quit net zero alliance
*Six [biggest] US banks quit net zero alliance before [the wrecker's]
inauguration.*
There was always a chance that it would be hard to make the banks
keep their commitments — that they were giving only lip service to
avoiding global disaster. That chance has now become certainty.
I recommend moving your money out of those banks and into smaller
ones. Those banks were also among those directly to blame for the
2008 fiscal crisis.
I moved my money out of one of them around then.
They are Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs. JP Morgan, Morgan
Stanley, and Wells Fargo
</li> |
| 4:36p |
British soldier testified on policy to kill Afghan men
Former British soldiers who were in Afghanistan testified in a
government inquiry. At least one testified there was a policy
of killing any Afghan men who were encountered in the field.
</li> |
| 4:36p |
Media celebrity's houses destroyed by fire
Some of the houses destroyed by fire in Los Angeles belong to media
celebrities.
The loss of a celebrity's home is not a worse blow than the loss of
someone else's home. On the contrary, the celebrity may be wealthy
enough to have another home elsewhere already, and perhaps can afford
to rebuild what was lost, except for some valuable art.
But these celebrities may be in a position to make the public aware
that "This can happen to you, and probably will happen some day if we
don't curb global heating."
</li> |
| 4:36p |
Elon Musk is monster bully on the loose
*Elon Musk is a monster bully on the loose, but he can only get his
way if we let him.*
</li> |
| 4:36p |
|
| 4:36p |
Protecting Israeli soldiers from prosecution
The Israeli army has made a rule that interviews with soldiers can't
show their faces or their names. This is to protect them from
possible prosecution for any war crimes or atrocities
they may be found to have committed.
</li> |
| 4:36p |
Urgent: Give clemency to Leonard Peltier
US citizens: call on Biden to give clemency to Leonard Peltier.
If you phone, please spread the word!
White House: +1-202-456-1111
and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above
work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code.
(See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or
are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the
end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring
you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work
without javascript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following
simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the
right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page
that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it
doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can
enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript.) You can finish sending without
that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the
browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page
that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your
letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters
to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender.
Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to
bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a
small effort for the result of supporting the campaign
without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious)
software.
</li> |
| 4:36p |
|